After School Writing Lab is a dedicated after-school writing program within a Chicago Public School.
With a focus on publishing, improving writing skills, and project-based learning. After School Writing Lab delivers long-term, meaningful change in the lives of students that improves writing skills and fosters creative self-expression. At the end of the program each student author will publish their writing in a chapbook that celebrates their work!
For the 2024-2025 school year, 826CHI will be partnering with Zapata Elementary for our After-School Writing Lab program.
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This year we will be bringing our Writing Roadshows (Field Trips) to you! Each of our Writing Roadshows will be hosted on Tuesdays and Thursdays in classrooms throughout the city. Writing Roadshows are tuition-free and offered to Chicago Public School classes in grades one through twelve. Each of our Writing Roadshow experiences is designed to be project-based, collaborative, playful, empowering, and imaginative, encouraging students to share their ideas in their unique voices.
Writing Roadshows will run from October through May for the 2024-25 school year.
826CHI prioritizes programs and services for students and communities most impacted by systemic disinvestment in high-quality literacy and arts education, students who identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), LGBTQIA+, neurodiverse learners, and English language learners, as well as neighborhood schools.
If you’re interested in one of our Writing Roadshows, sign up for our newsletter and fill out our interest form below!
Fill Out Our Interest Form Here!
Please email programs@826chi.org with any questions.
Students are guided through an adventure of writing stories using images from magazines as their guide. These stories can go a multitude of directions, depending on which pictures are chosen and how they are interpreted. Staff and volunteers support students as they make a collage of their images and develop clever, imaginative stories based on them. This Field Trip helps share effective, tangible, and memorable skills into the writing process and helps make writing feel more fun for students who may not be a fan of writing or think they have nothing to write about. Each student will receive a copy of their group’s book, as a published author.
Students will learn about the history of spoken word poetry and its deep roots in Chicago. They will also apply poetic elements to their own original poems individually and as a group and get the chance to share out loud. This Field Trip is great for students who are expressive and enjoy spoken word poetry. This is a great addition for classrooms preparing for, culminating, or in the middle of a poetry unit.
826CHI partners with schools, libraries, and community organizations across Chicago to bring our creative writing and zine making experiences directly to where young people already learn and grow.
Whether you’re looking to spark storytelling in a single classroom or host a hands-on workshop for dozens of students, our team can design a joyful, literacy-rich session tailored to your community’s needs—all at no cost to you or your students.
📚 Our mobile programs are ideal for:
We prioritize working with schools and communities most impacted by systemic barriers to high-quality arts and literacy education.
Interested in partnering? Complete this interest form to bring the magic of student storytelling to your space!
826CHI works in collaboration with after-school programs and community-based organizations to offer creative writing workshops to students in neighborhoods across Chicago. These workshops, which explore writing and another area of study, include:
All of our workshops are Common Core Standards-aligned.
Do you work with students who would benefit from two or three session writing workshops in your space or ours? Have an idea for a workshop? email us at programs@826chi.org
Teen Writers Studio (TWS) is a year-long creative writing workshop that connects high school students to fellow writers, including peers and older professionals in the field. It’s open to anyone in 7th-12th grade and welcomes youth from all over the city. TWS members meet frequently each month to write together, talk about writing, and produce a literary chapbook each year. If you’re into any of the above, this space is for you.
Each spring, TWS students produce a chapbook, which they share and celebrate at a release party with friends, family, and 826CHI’s community.
For questions email us at programs@826chi.org.
Built to meet the needs of educators, our In-School Partnerships program brings the 826CHI education team into classrooms and community centers across the city to work with students. 826CHI staff, volunteers, and Teaching Artists support teachers' existing curricula and/or collaborate on new ideas. If you are a classroom teacher or community-based educator looking to partner with 826CHI, please share your project idea with us by applying today.
If you have any questions, email us at programs@826chi.org.
At 826CHI, our project-based approach to teaching writing affirms all student voices as valuable and brilliant. Through our programs, we turn our students into published authors. Each year, we publish more than 100 unique projects, from professionally edited, printed, and designed books to books and zines printed and bound by our staff.
Students’ work is featured in Chicago Public Library branches across the city, shelved in CPS school libraries, prominently displayed in our writing lab to inspire future student-authors, and sold in and independent bookstores throughout the city.
Purchase 826CHI student publications here: bookshop.org/shop/826CHI
Published dozens of times each year as the culmination of smaller, multi-week projects.
Each year 826CHI partners with CPS classrooms on an extended writing project which culminates in a specially designed and beautifully bound book.
Published once every two years. Each volume of this anthology features republished favorites from students of all ages, from across our programs.
Published at the end of each two-hour creative writing session, students take home copies of the original story they wrote together as a class.
Purchase copies through our online store, bookshop.org/shop/826CHI or check out of your local Chicago library branch.
Wherever you are, you can bring the 826 spirit and methodology to your community with 826 Digital. 826 Digital is an online platform that hosts a collection of engaging, adaptable, standards-based resources designed to captivate young writers and empower their educators.
826 Digital was created by teachers for teachers; it hosts an ever-expanding collection of lessons, projects, writing prompts, and student writing that brings an unconventional and engaging approach to teaching writing.
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